Free Republic

A bad case of Tom Ricketts in Wrigley Field, Chicago. Major League sports team owners we will always have with us. They are different from the rest of us. Wake a normal person at three in the morning with a loud noise and he’ll yell, “Holy ****! What was that!?” Wake a major league team owner (any sport) at the same time with the same noise and he’ll explain, “We need a new ball-yard. And if you don’t buy us one with public money we’ll move the team to Keokuk.” When The Mob does this it’s called extortion. When major...

On Monday, April 29, Washington Wizards center Jason Collins publicly announced that he was gay. Hours after Collins’ announcement, the career of ESPN writer Chris Broussard hung in the balance for remarks he made on Outside the Lines that were deemed a “distraction” by the network. Amid public praise for Jason Collins, Broussard, a Christian, spoiled the party with his principled commentary on the 34-year old NBA player’s announcement. The revelation, Broussard said, was met with a “mixed bag of reactions [among NBA players and coaches], just like there is throughout America.” In his Outside the Lines interview, the reporter...

President Barack Obama was proud to become the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood last Friday. But not proud enough to utter the word “abortion.” The right to abortion is the sneakiest, most shame-faced of all American rights. Its most devoted supporters don’t dare speak its name. They hide behind evasion and euphemism and cant. So Obama sang a hymn of praise to Planned Parenthood at the organization’s annual conference without mentioning what makes it so distinctive and controversial. He said it is a group women “count on for so many important services.” He said its core principle is...

Planned Parenthood is much in the news lately. And they can’t be happy about it. The trial of House of Horrors abortionist Kermit Gosnell is putting killing babies in a bad light. And then Lila Rose and Live Action released a number of videos showing there’s no real difference between Planned Parenthood and Gosnell. So I’ve put together a list of people I believe Planned Parenthood hates the most. Here they are: Lila Rose – You can’t overestimate the intensity of hatred that Planned Parenthood feels for Lila Rose. You see, representatives of Planned Parenthood never talk about abortion or...

Four months ago when the legislative session began no one knew what to expect. It would be the first time in more than 20 years that the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Governor’s office. Now with just three weeks before the scheduled adjournment of the 2013 legislative session the intent of the DFL lawmakers actions are clear. They are doing everything imaginable in their power to drive entrepreneurs and job creators out of Minnesota. Just like a bunch of young cowboys driving a herd of cattle, the message these cowboys are sending to...

Recent events at the Capitol make clear that we ­Minnesotans are on track for one of the biggest tax increases in recent state history. But suppose you could wave a magic wand and erase our budget deficit, pay off the $801 million left from the school shift, actually have a surplus — and do it all without raising taxes. There’d be dancing in the streets, right? Well, our legislators could do precisely that right now. They would simply need to freeze spending for the next biennium at current levels — about $35 billion — and we wouldn’t need a dime...

One is often judged, fairly or unfairly, by the company they keep. Hang with someone who is a thief and it may be assumed that you are also a thief. Affiliate with an organization and those values espoused by that organization are assumed to be yours. Fair or not, it is what it is. While our Lord and Savior hung around with those judged not acceptable by society, He came to heal their spiritual shortcomings. Jesus healed the sick, both physically and spiritually. So, when Jesus sat down with prostitutes and tax collectors, He did so to heal their hearts...

A California megachurch pastor involved in the National Day of Prayer who has recently come under fire for his views on homosexuality has declared that he will not be intimidated. At a prayer event held Wednesday morning at the Washington, D.C., office of the Family Research Council, Pastor Greg Laurie told those gathered, "I won't back down." "They do not want me to pray. They describe me as 'homophobic' and so forth. How can you deal with such a situation? We're in a time in our country now where I'm attacked because I believe what the Bible teaches," said Laurie,...

At his press conference Tuesday, President Obama assured Americans that, “To the 85-90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance: They’re already experiencing most of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act even if they don’t know it.” Those benefits apparently include higher premiums. According to the Wall Street Journal, insurers are warning that premiums in the individual and small-group markets could double in the next few years. Already, they are well on their way. For example, California health insurers are proposing increases for some customers of 20 percent or more: 26 percent by Blue Cross, 22 percent by...

We are becoming a society in which “choice” and self-defined identities trump once-common values and traditional beliefs. But contrary to the rhetoric of its defenders, this shift is not a simple advance for freedom. The privileging of “choice” above all else in fact requires re-engineering the human person and society as a whole, and this will inevitably involve a great deal of coercion. This shift, if it didn’t begin with Roe v. Wade, could be said to have been dramatically accelerated by it. Despite continuing opposition by over 50 percent of the American people, abortion is now universally available, in...

Heterosexual marriage is the most diverse binary sexual relationship that Nature can provide. Two people of the opposite sex, equipped with wildly divergent anatomy, sexual responses, hormones, brain function and role expectations are expected to learn to cooperate with, understand, and learn to love one another. Although lesbians and gays like to think of themselves as the bastions of sexual diversity, in fact the opposite is true. After all, what is diverse about two men in a relationship or two women in a relationship? How difficult is the sexual adjustment when both parties have the same attractions and sexual response...

Even knowing that there are radicals in all movements, doesn’t lessen the startling admission recently by lesbian journalist Masha Gessen. On a radio show she actually admits that homosexual activists are lying about their radical political agenda. She says that they don’t want to access the institution of marriage; they want to radically redefine and eventually eliminate it. Here is what she recently said on a radio interview: “It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay...

“Thatcher’s faith and leadership helped revive a nation, peacefully win the Cold War, and promote global human rights ultimately based on biblical principles of human dignity and responsibility.” -IRD [Institute on Religion and Democracy] President Mark Tooley Washington, DC—Raised a devout Methodist who later joined the Church of England, Margaret Thatcher vigorously applied her Christian faith to her public life as one of the most important and successful leaders of the Cold War era. Thatcher outlined her public theology in her 1988 speech to the Church of Scotland, where she explained the Bible offers a “view of the universe, a...

A recently discovered cache of e-mails raises the question of whether Vaughn R. Walker, the judge who blocked California’s Proposition 8 which protected traditional marriage, had an inappropriately close relationship with the attorneys who argued the case before him. The legal blog Patterico’s Ponderings has published an e-mail exchange between Vaughn R. Walker, the judge who blocked California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, and the law partner of Ted Olson, an attorney who argued against the bill during the trial in 2010 and is currently arguing against it again before the U.S. Supreme Court. Retired Judge Vaughn Walker struck...

It’s sad when clergy egregiously politicize worship, especially on an important holy day at an historic church that used to symbolize non partisan unity. But the Episcopal clergy Luis Leon at St. John’s Episcopal Church next to the White House, known as the church of the presidents, discharged some cheap shots during Easter worship today, with the Obamas in the congregation. “It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back,” Leon sermonized. “For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen,...

Even concepts like ‘mother,’ ‘father’ are threatened by activist onslaught. The marriage amendment may have fallen short at the polls in November, but a majority of Minnesotans continue to support marriage as the union of one man and one woman, according to recent polls by KSTP/SurveyUSA and the Star Tribune. In the Star Tribune poll, only 38 percent said they favored legalization of same-sex marriage. Clearly, the amendment vote wasn’t a green light for same-sex marriage, and legislators would be wrong to see it that way. Most likely, voters were spooked by a lavishly funded campaign in which supporters of...

Pro-choice Americans must wonder from time to time what keeps pro-lifers going. Why don't we lay down our signs, cease our marching and admit that we've been good and beaten for these 40 years since Roe v. Wade? One of us is a baby boomer, the other a millennial; our views may help others understand these things and, along the way, think about some rarely considered aspects of the U.S. experience with legal abortion. The case for pro-life despair has more than a few compelling points. First, there is abortion itself -- the destruction of a human life, at its...

Why would a Christian denomination pay a lecturer to speak at their events who does not believe Jesus physically rose from the dead? Why would the same denomination recommend and use that lecturer's teaching resources when he doesn't even believe God exists? Those are good questions every lay person should be asking the leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The lecturer I am referring to is John Dominic Crossan, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar (read about it here) and popular New Testament scholar. Let me first show you the multitude of ways the ELCA has sought Crossan and...

Editor's note: Reacting to a proposed tax affecting Minnesota "snowbirds," U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, a Fort Myers, Fla., Republican, sent this letter to Gov. Mark Dayton. It was published recently in the Naples Daily News.Dear Gov. Mark Dayton, I'm writing today to thank you. As a Floridian, I am overjoyed to hear about your plan to raise taxes on Minnesotans, most especially the so-called "snowbirds." Your proposal gives us a chance to shine here in the Sunshine State. We love to share southwest Florida with snowbirds from all over the country. We are proud to host or be home to...

The head of a conservative student organization at DePaul University has been sanctioned by the university and could be expelled after he released the names of vandals who destroyed a pro-life flag display. Kristopher Del Campo, the chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter, was found guilty by the university on two counts – “Disorderly, Violent, Intimidating or Dangerous Behavior to Self or Others” and “Judicial Process Compliance.” DePaul University did not return calls seeking comment. Last January Del Campo and other pro-life students received permission from the university to erect a pro-life display featuring 500 flags. Vandals later...